The Canadian Digital Media Network today announced that its annual digital media forum, CDMN Canada 3.0, will be held next year in Toronto for the first time in the conference’s five-year history.

Having outgrown the Stratford, Ontario venue that has traditionally housed the conference, Canada’s digital media forum will be held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in May 2013. The MTCC, situated downtown, can accommodate the growing conference and support a variety of conference configurations, CDMN says. It is also easily accessible by both land and air for both domestic and international attendees, the organization notes.

“Staging CDMN Canada 3.0 2013 in downtown Toronto will provide greater capacity for attendees and will put us at the heart of Canada’s largest city where there is a concentration of ‘digital natives’ who want to join the conversation and influence the future of digital media in Canada,” said Kevin Tuer, CDMN’s Managing Director.

Today isalso the official launch of the Canada 3.0 2013 SoapBox, the deployment of a crowdsourcing application that links into the Canada30Forum Facebook Page. Created by HitSend, a startup incubated at CDMN node Ryerson Digital Media Zone, the SoapBox platform allows users to offer, gather and share ideas, which can be voted on by other users using a simple click of a thumbs up or thumbs down icon. If the idea resonates within the group, it is then forwarded to the decision makers at CDMN who can implement user ideas.

“HitSend has already partnered with Indigo Books & Music, The Walrus Magazine, Vitaminwater Canada and Ryerson University to help these organizations listen to their communities and implement positive change,” said Valerie Fox, Executive Director, Ryerson Digital Media Zone. “This inspiring team from the DMZ is an example of Canadian digital media innovation. It’s very fitting that its SoapBox tool will now be gathering the voice of the country in regards to this year’s Canada 3.0 event.”

Brennan McEachran, Co-Founder of HitSend added, “The attendees of the Canada 3.0 forum include some of the greatest minds in Canadian digital media and this year, our SoapBox platform will be used to propel their ideas into tangible action. We are very excited to see our tool as the frontrunner for Canadian innovation.”

CDMN Canada 3.0 began in 2009 as a forum to discuss the state of digital media in Canada and what opportunities exist. Since then, the forum has grown to bring together 2,000 and more industry, academia, government and other influencers to set concrete actions in place to influence government policy and stimulate adoption and growth of digital media across all sectors nationally.

“We’re grateful to the City of Stratford for having served as host city for the forum for the past four years, and congratulate Stratford on being named one of the Top 7 Intelligent Cities in the world,” said Tuer. “The city has been instrumental in the development of Canada 3.0 and there will be a continued CDMN presence in Stratford through future events and initiatives.”

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